TheBalm Meet Matt(e) Nude Eyeshadow Palette vs. Paula's Choice The Nude Mattes Eyeshadow Palette

Disclosure: This post contains referral links.
I got TheBalm's Meet Matt(e) Nude eyeshadow palette in September after reading positive reviews of it and deciding that I needed some less shimmery eye options for work. I picked it up for $21 from Hautelook, which, as I've said before, is really the best place I've come across to buy TheBalm products, so long as you can be a little patient. They're almost always marked down 50% and they have a good selection there, including most of the newer palettes and other products. (TheBalm usually has a 50% off sale once or twice a year on their own site, but it almost always seems to be a mess, with the site crashing all over the place, and it only lasts 24 hours.) TheBalm is on HauteLook at this very moment, which is why I figured it would be a good idea to write up this comparison today (in case my saying it's "fine" ignites a burning passion in anyone?).

I posted a quick review of the palette on Instagram and noted that the shadows were fine, but that there were no good highlight shades. Most of the shades are very dark, with the exception of one fairly stark white, which I just don't find useful.

Then in December Paula's Choice had a deal where you could get their The Nude Mattes eyeshadow palette, which is usually $40, for free with a $60 purchase. Since I had some credits to use and I needed to replace some of my regular products anyway, I made a bigger order than I would usually do in order to get the eyeshadow palette. Exactly what they wanted me to do. I was a good mark, obviously. Why do I need another eyeshadow palette when I have approximately a billion fucking eyeshadows that I am never going to use up, you ask? I DON'T. This is why I'm trying to get my shit together. And as part of that, I've decided that I am going to get rid of one of these two palettes. I wanted to compare them, and I was not-so-secretly hoping that TheBalm came out behind, since it's less versatile. Since I wanted to do the comparison for myself anyway, and since writing these things out helps me make decisions, I figured I might as well make a post of it. So here we go.

Paula's Choice The Nude Mattes and TheBalm Meet Matt(e) Nude

Paula's Choice The Nude Mattes and TheBalm Meet Matt(e) Nude

The comparison is pretty simple. I used the brush that came with the PC palette, which is a soft but otherwise not very effective brush, to swatch shades that look similar. Obviously they are not identical, but I thought it made sense to compare them this way. I didn't swatch every shade. TheBalm palette has 9 and the PC palette has 12. I didn't do a comparison for the white ("Matt Malloy") or the yellowish ("Matt Lombardi") shades, since nothing in the PC palette came close, and they are shadows I'm not likely to use anyway. Here's how things compare without the use of primer.

Swatches of Paula's Choice The Nude Mattes (top row) and TheBalm Meet Matt(e) Nude (bottom row)

Overall, I guess TheBalm's shadows are slightly more pigmented (maybe?), but the think the difference is negligible. TheBalm's browns perform a bit better, but the grays/taupes are the same or worse. Note that the PC shadows might be just a little more powdery, in case mess bothers you, and the powder does show up on the black packaging. The texture of the TheBalm shadows is not perfect, either, though.

Then I swatched two similar shades from each palette (a grey/taupe and a brown) over Wet N Wild eyeshadow primer (my favorite primer, all things considered), since I always use primer when I wear eyeshadow. It makes sense to compare them that way, for me.

Swatches of Paula's Choice The Nude Mattes (top row) and TheBalm Meet Matt(e) Nude (bottom row)

With primer, there's really no difference at all. That means I'm going to ditch the palette from TheBalm and keep the one from Paula's Choice.

In an overall comparison, they each have strengths and weaknesses - and since their regular price is very close ($42 for Meet Matt(e) Nudes vs. $40 for The Nude Mattes), they are worth considering together. The advantage of the PC set is that it has more shades, and that it has more light shades to use for highlighting. It even has one shimmer/satin light shade to use for that purpose. It's a little heavy on the darker shades, I think, which is a negative for me. It goes from very light to very dark quickly, without much in the middle. I would gladly exchange the black, which is a color that I already have a million versions of and one that I rarely use, for another medium shade. Maybe a lighter taupe.

TheBalm's palette has the advantage of containing more than twice as much product for only an extra $2 (25.5 g vs. 12 g), so value wise it's a better deal. (You do get a brush with the PC set, and they clearly tried to go for a non-crap brush, but it's pretty lackluster, so I'm not factoring it into the value.) Meet Matt(e) Nude also has some more unusual shades, if you already own a lot of neutrals. But for me that wasn't a big plus, since the unusual ones are a yellowish beige that looks dreadful on me, and a barely-off white that I really can't find a use for. It's also not really a palette than I can use on its own, because I like to have a highlight color, and that white isn't doing it for me. So it wouldn't be great for travel, for example. (Maybe the original Meet Matt(e) palette would be a better choice, but I haven't tried it. And I won't be buying more eyeshadow for a while.) As for the design of the packaging? That might be a plus or a minus for you. I'm personally not a huge fan of the big dude face on it.

For me, the PC palette makes more sense to hold on to. If you were considering both of them at full price, TheBalm is a better value - and it is especially a lot of product for your dollar if you get it half price from Hautelook. The best deal you're probably going to get on the Paula's Choice palette, unless they give it away as a gift with purchase again, is to use someone's referral link (here's mine) for $10 off a purchase on a new account. And wait until they offer free shipping, which happens pretty frequently. $30 is better than $40.

I am usually someone with Opinions, but I'm going to have to say this one comes down to what you will personally get more use out of. In terms of performance, the two are virtually the same. You get more product from TheBalm, but if you're never going to use it all, then that's not necessarily worth paying for. I'm going to ditch TheBalm's palette, because it's taking up space, and I need to be more brutal about culling my hoard.